Viral Monkeys and Marketing Magic – A recipe for social media success

In this Skip the Queue podcast episode, Oz travels to Trentham Monkey Forest near Stoke on Trent to speak to Josh Torlop, Marketing and Pr Manager.

“I think some brands tend to forget that their audiences are human and they don’t want to be sold to. They want to see organic content.”

Josh is a passionate marketer and PR professional currently working at Trentham Monkey Forest in Staffordshire. As the sole member of the Marketing & PR team, he manages, oversees, and delivers all communication strategies for one of the UK’s most fascinating woodlands. This unique role requires him to wear many hats, as he strives to create best-in-class campaigns across multiple fronts.

Trentham Monkey Forest is unlike any other place in the UK. It’s a 60-acre woodland where 140 Barbary macaques live freely, mirroring their natural habitat. This distinct feature is the heart of the attraction, and Josh is driven to share this “sparkle” with as many people as possible, all while working within a modest budget. A visit to the forest, which Josh first experienced with his aunt in 2007 as a child, left a lasting impression on him. Now, he aims to ensure that visitors create similarly special and lasting memories at this remarkable destination, all for an affordable entry fee—an essential element of his marketing strategy.

In 2024, Monkey Forest reached a record-breaking year for footfall, and as the year draws to a close, Josh has been collaborating with Oz on creating ‘out of the box’ campaigns that break the ‘fourth wall’ between the brand and the consumer. Reflecting on a PR stunt he strategized and executed in 2022, which went globally viral and reached hundreds of millions worldwide, Josh considers it a personal career highlight. His enthusiasm for being a one-man marketing team at such a unique destination continues to fuel his innovative and ambitious approach.

What will you learn from this podcast?

•  The challenges of being a one man marketing team
• The downside of globally viral social media content
• Importance of user-generated content and social media engagement
• What life is like working with a forest full of monkeys
• Future events for Trentham Monkey Forest

Your hosts, Paul Marden & Oz Austwick

Our guest, Josh Torlop

Paul Marden: So welcome to season six. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, welcome back. 

Paul Marden: How are we back already? Because it feels like only yesterday were recording the tail end of season five. So where’s my summer break? It just seems to have gone. 

Oz Austwick: It does seem a little bit like we’ve not really had much time off. We must have. Must have had a bit of a break. 

Paul Marden: Yes, absolutely. Because I’ve got a list. As long as you are, of all the places that I’ve been over the summer holidays, where have you been? 

Oz Austwick: Like you? Lots of places. Lots of castles, a few stately homes and one or two more unusual places. But I think if I had to pick one, I went to Highclere. Okay. I love it. I’m a massive Downton Abbey fan. I tried so hard not to like Downton Abbey and just utterly failed and got sucked into this wonderful world of 1920s stately home. The lives going on upstairs and down. And you know what? It’s just such a good series and to go and experience the place and see all these wonderful familiar areas with my 15 year old daughter, who is even more of a fan than me, was just amazing. 

Paul Marden: Brilliant. 

Oz Austwick: We might just have been blaring theme music out of the car on the way down the drive. How about you? 

Paul Marden: So where have I been? We went to we the curious back in Bristol, which has just reopened after two years of being closed. And that was just amazing. I took my daughter there with two of her friends and we had a whale of time wandering around there. We’ve been to the  Roman Baths down in Bath. That was quite fun. That was a very hot day, but we had a lovely time just wandering around in the baths. We really enjoyed that. The one standout thing that I did that does not come around very often, where it comes around once every four years. We went to the Olympics, so went and experienced handball of all games. Never watched a handball game in my life, but it was amazing. It was just so much fun. 

Oz Austwick: I don’t think I know anything about handball. 

Paul Marden: Well, I was expecting something a bit like basketball or netball. No, not at all. No. This was full on contact sport. It’s like rugby, but inside and throwing people around. It was awesome. It was so fast paced. We saw it was France v Germany, so it was absolutely stacked in the stadium. But they captured the spirit of London 2012. It felt just like the part, the atmosphere that we felt when went to the main stadium, the athletic stadium during 2012 but with a french twist. 

Oz Austwick: Not your first Olympics, then? 

Paul Marden: No, not my first. But I didn’t see Usain Bolt this time. I did see him 2012. He was only about a spec on the other side of the stadium at the time, but no, we had a great time and there was just so much about the way that they organised it. It’s a feat of human engineering, isn’t it, to put that on for two weeks stint. But they organised it so well and yeah, it was thoroughly enjoyable. 

Oz Austwick: So, speaking of events, we’re going to one pretty soon, aren’t we? I mean, it’s not quite on the scale of the Olympics, but it’s going to be glorious all the same. 

Paul Marden: Yes. So this will be my third National Theme Park Awards. I promise this year not to scream quite so loudly if I actually go one of the roller coasters whilst we’re there. 

Oz Austwick: Well, I’m going with you, so I will record it. 

Paul Marden: I promise you. I screamed like a marine last year. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah. So we’ll be there. We’re there officially as Rubber Cheese, aren’t we? So, yes, if you’re there, come over and say hi, we’ve got a stall, I think a stand and we might have some freebies. We’ll definitely have some chocolates because it’s a good excuse to have some chocolates. So come and find us and have some chocolates with us. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, it’s an in real life experience, so come over and talk to us, give us your ideas. What can we do this season and what would you like us to talk about? Can we come to see ewing at your theme park? 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, because we’re doing a bit of that this season, aren’t we? We’ve got a few lined up. 

Paul Marden: We do. We do. It was something that you said last at the end of Season 5 that you wanted to do differently, that we work in this attraction sector which is all about going and doing experiences and we spend the whole of the podcast sat in a square room with nothing much going on and without actually meeting people in real life. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actually record in real life with people? 

Oz Austwick: It’s crazy not to. We’re talking to people at these amazing places and I just get to sit in my own dodgy little converted office. But not this time. No. So you met a chap a little while ago at a conference, didn’t you? 

Paul Marden: Yeah, I met Josh from Trentham Monkey Forest, and he was presenting. I think if I’m right in saying this, it was the first time h. e’s done a presentation at conference before, but I was blown away by him and his presentation, and he’s a one man marketing machine for Trentham from his own slide. He tells this story about being the CMO and the social media executive and the website editor and all of these different hats that. That you have to wear when you’re running marquee in a small business. That’s Josh, and I just loved it. And I was really impressed with the way he was talking about the outcomes of what he had achieved as a result of the work that he was doing. It wasn’t just about the activities that he was doing. 

It was what difference that made to the organization as a result of him doing it, which I found really impressive. So I really wanted him on the podcast, and I jumped on a call with him and. And his first idea was, why don’t you come and record it in the Monkey Forest? So here we are at the start of Season 6, and you’ve had a chance to go up there, haven’t you? 

Oz Austwick: Yeah. I mean, it is a little ironic that my favorite podcast. Sorry, my second favourite podcast, because obviously this is my favourite. My second favourite podcast is the Infinite Monkey Cage. So to get to go and record in what is essentially a cage with monkeys in itheme seemed like way too good an opportunity to pass up on. It was an amazing day. I try not to say too much about it because we’ve got the whole interview to come. 

Paul Marden: Absolutely. But I’m assuming that everything went slickly and it was a well oiled machine and it’s got the same production values as we would normally expect. 

Oz Austwick: No, not at all. I mean, I realised that there was potentially an issue when we. I got there and I found the place really easily. It was great. It was nicely signposted. I found the right place. The people in the car parks were hugely helpful. They sent me there. I parked up, a lovely lady took me to Josh. We got all the gear. We walked quite a long way into a forest full of monkeys, and then I realised I didn’t have a camera with me.

And of course, it’s not an easy thing to go because we couldn’t just leave all the gear with the monkeys and both walk back. But because I wasn’t wearing official Trentham Monkey Forest clothing, they didn’t want people to see me walking around in the woods off the path. So it became quite. 

So we figured it out, got the camera, got back, started setting everything up, and of course, because we’re not sitting at desks I’ve got a lovely microphone that I wanted to put out in front of us, but you can’t string a cable across a large open area where there are monkeys. 

Paul Marden: Health and safety issues with monkeys. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, well, absolutely. The fact is, I mean, we could have done it, but the monkeys would have probably just taken the microphone away. So there is, if I’m being honest, a little bit of wind noise because the microphone’s slightly further from us than I hoped it would be. I’ve got Josh miked up, so it’s only me that you struggle to hear. But that being said, I mean, what an amazing experience if you haven’t been to Trentham Monkey Forest, go.

We’ve talked about this a little before, but there’s this kind of period, 100, 120 years ago when all of the great historic homes, these are amazing estates, suddenly started having to find other ways of making money. And you can look around and some of them have survived and some of them haven’t. Some of them have just gone completely. 

Some were turned into flats and one was turned into a monkey forest, which just feels a little bit random. But, yeah, I mean, Josh is a really smart guy, very switched on, very articulate and very knowledgeable, and he’s got his own monkey army. So. 

Paul Marden: I’ve got nothing to say to that other than we desperately got to listen to the rest of this interview. It’s going to be so interesting. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, well, absolutely. But before we do, if you’re listening and you have a thing going on and you’d like us to come and be part of it and record there, please do get in touch and let us know if you’re doing something interesting in the visitor attraction sector. We’d love to talk to you. Or if there’s just a pressing issue that you think isn’t getting the exposure that it should be, then, yeah, let us know, because this isn’t really about us, it’s about the sector. And if we can help, then that would be amazing. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. So we’ve got lined up for this season. We’re going to do some in real life at conferences. So we’re going to go to ASDC conference and do some in real life interviews there. We’ve been invited to some attractions already. So, you know, if you’ve got a conference and you’d love us to come along and do something in real life for the podcast, let us know if you’d like us to come to your attraction because you’re running an event for Halloween or Christmas or whatever it is then let us know. We will chuckle the gear in the back of a car. We promise we will better prepared if we meet monkeys again. Can’t promise that we’ll better prepared for other animals or small children or whatever, but, you know, we’ll do our best. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, I mean, I’d be hesitant and promising I’d be more prepared, to be honest with you, but, you know, we’ll do our best and we’ll come up with something on at the end of it, I’m sure. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, exactly. So, without any further ado, shall we get on to listening to the interview that you did with. With Josh athlete at Trenton Monkey forest? 

Oz Austwick: So welcome, Josh. Thanks very much for joining us. Regular listeners will probably be aware of a bit of wind noise on this one because for the first time, we’re recording on location in a monkey forest. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, it’s the first time for me to be honest, because I’m just looking across our forest here and we’ve got three or four monkeys surrounding us. 

Oz Austwick: Yeah, I must admit it’s a little bit odd, if I’m being honest. I’m used to sitting in an office, at a desk, and today I’m leaning on a tree surrounded by monkeys. 

Josh Torlop: It’s giving me a little bit of power here. I’m not the host and I’m making you feel uncomfortable with these monkeys around us, but no, yeah, we’re perfectly fine. The monkeys have their natural weariness intact of humans, so they won’t bother us too much. They will simply live their monkey life around us. 

Oz Austwick: If you’re listening to this on Spotify or through iTunes or anything like that, then please check out the YouTube video and you’ll be able to see some of the monkeys that are currently watching us. So, as always, we tend to start with a couple of icebreaker questions. And now we’re in Season 6, that’s not going to change anytime soon. So I’ve got a couple of kind off the wall questions for you. 

Josh Torlop: Oh, here we go. 

Oz Austwick: What’s the biggest animal that you think you could carry up a flight of stairs? 

Josh Torlop: Oh, that’s a good question. So, when I was younger, I had a Labrador called Tommy who had a bit of a gut. 

Oz Austwick: Okay. 

Josh Torlop: So I’d say I’d carry Tommy, and that might be a very boring answer, but he could eat anything. We had two labradors, one called Blake and one called Tommy. And Tommy used to finish his food and eat Blake’s food, so I would say Tommy. 

Oz Austwick: Okay, cool. Yeah, I reckon. I think you could carry a labrador. The next one is what film should be remade by the Muppets. 

Josh Torlop: Oh, that’s an interesting one, isn’t it? 

Oz Austwick: Yeah. 

Josh Torlop: The Wolf of Wall Street. I’d love to see Kim the frog take on Wall street. How good would that be? 

Oz Austwick: That would be amazing. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, that would be perfect. Because Margot Robbie’s blonde. Miss Piggy was blonde. Not to say that Margot Robbie looks at all like Miss Piggy, but that’s. Yeah, that’d work. 

Oz Austwick: I doubt she’s a listener, if I can. So one of the things I really want to talk to you about, other than that this venue, which is quite unique, at least in the UK, is the challenges of being a one man marketing team. Let’s start off. Just tell me a little bit about the monkey forest and how it became a thing. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, certainly. So, Trentham Monkey Forest is one of four parks protecting Barbary macaques. That is a highly endangered species of primate. So there’s less than 8000 in the wild. So we have two parks in France, one in Germany and one here in Staffordshire. Stokend Trentham Monkey Forest.

And it started all the way back in 1969 in Kinzheim in the Alsace region. Listeners might remember Beauty and the Beast. That’s where the town was famously sort of depicted. Oh, yeah, there we go. Yeah. Back to the Muppets. Well, yeah. But in terms of our journey, if you will, it was two french chaps, one called Jack Trinau and one called Gilbert de turquine, that basically sought this mission to protect this incredible species, monkey called Barbary macaques. 

So they wanted to create this fantastic concept where around 100 monkeys, 100 to 150, could simply be themselves in a forest completely, no interference from humans, in a way where it would be able to preserve the natural behaviours in order to facilitate possible reintroduction. 

Oz Austwick: Okay. 

Josh Torlop: So it was an incredible forward thinking concept. And you fast forward 40 years, they had to basically have to open two parks, another one in France in Rocamadour, and then another one in Germany in the sort of Lake Constance area, basically, because they sort of made the mistakes before us, basically. So they realised that once you have a lot of monkeys in a forest living how they would. They’d mate and they’d make. You’d end up with more monkeys.

So they had to open more parks came this incredible conservation project for this one species, which makes us incredibly different, because their passion was engaging people with this primate in particular, by letting visitors to the area marvel at the incredible behaviours right in front of them from 2 meters away. 

But also, the monkeys having this, you know, this separation between human and primate, so their natural behaviours weren’t deteriorated. So it was an incredible concept that here we are, 2005, we’ll say we opened in Trentham, Stoke, and here we are, 2024, 19 years later, thriving, surviving, and I’m doing the marketing for it, which is incredible. 

Oz Austwick: Absolutely. So how do you end up as the marketing and pr manager of a monkey forest? 

Josh Torlop: So what you do is the year was, what, 2021? And I was looking for a role in marketing and I was scrolling through LinkedIn and Indeed, as you do when you’re searching for a job. And I saw an advertisement for a marketing and PR officer at Trentham Monkey Forest. And it brought me back to when I was seven years old, my auntie and my mum coming to visit Monkey Forest for the first time and being absolutely amazed at the fact that there was a primate right in front of me, acting as if I wasn’t there and it was just being a monkey, I thought it was magnificent.

And that visit always stuck with me. And for me, as a visitor attraction, I always talk about, now I’m marketing at a visitor attraction. Is the sparkle what excites your visitors to come to you? 

And that is it. That moment of thinking, wow, that’s incredible, there’s a monkey right there acting exactly how it would in the wild. That’s always stuck with me. And that inspired me to apply for that role because I wanted to share that sort of memory maker with thousands of people to visit the park and have that same experience. And thankfully, we’re doing that quite well. We’re hitting all the right noises on TikTok. 

Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah, you’re doing a great job. Does it ever get normal? Because I have to say, it’s really weird to be stood here in a perfectly normal british bit of woodland. And, yeah, there are monkeys. 

Josh Torlop: Well, if you look to your left, you’ll see a statue of a man in the distance. So that man is the Duke of Sutherland. He once owned this land, a bit like lion king, you know, everywhere the light touches, I own. Basically, in the victorian times, he owned the Trentham estate. So everywhere we’re looking now, that was Duke Sutherland’s land. And people of that time actually enjoyed this forest for leisure. So not much has really changed because people still enjoy it. It’s just there’s monkeys here, which I love to imagine if we just brought him back for just a day and I would be like, what do you think of this use for your land, mister Duke, Sir Duke? 

Oz Austwick: I think it’s fascinating. And one of the things that we see a lot, because we talk to and work with a lot of old historic estates and the kind of, I guess maybe 100 years ago or so, there was a real issue where they had to suddenly start doing something to survive. They couldn’t just have the land and keep it, they had to actually make some use of it or lose it. And it’s really interesting how some places in their safari parks or golf courses or hotels and spas, and there we have a load of monkeys. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, I mean, 60 acres, about the equivalent of 40 football pitches. For any football fans listening, that’s a lot of space. And the visitors see a very small proportion of that, which is nice in a way. I’d love for visitors to see all our forest, but for the monkeys, they have such a huge, vast amount of forest space to live exactly how they would in the wild, to a point. That’s incredible.

So we invited last year, for example, a David Attenborough producer called Rosie Thomas to do a members evening. We obviously have members, and she had literally just been filming in the Algeria, Morocco, a region where these monkeys are native to. 

And she was absolutely bowled over by the fact that it was bringing her back to filming with David Attenborough, which was crazy to think, but so rewarding, in a sense, for us, as an organisation, to think we’re doing the right things. And, yeah, that was probably a moment where I thought, wow. Well, I always think, wow. But that, for me, sums up Monkey Forest. To see that a David Attenborough producer could be amazed, and the environment. 

Oz Austwick: So, yeah, so how do you market it? 

Josh Torlop: How do I market it? 

Oz Austwick: It’s not like there’s a playbook that already. 

Josh Torlop: That’s probably the beauty of it. But is there a playbook for marketing? I mean, TikTok, I feel like if you ever see the Royal Society Protection of Birds, RSPB, they’re amazing. They are so hilarious with TikTok. But for us, I think we stick to our unique. Oh, gosh, USP Unique Selling Point of, you walk amongst the monkeys. We have a little bit of fun with it, but also, we know our audience quite well, in a sense, that we know which channels suit certain content types. Pr. We do a lot of story pushing, storytelling features, like a huge part of our marketing activity. We tend to go viral quite often with user generated content. 

So we try and, you know, push that to make sure that visitors want to take a TikTok here, get excited about that, because it could go viral, it could blow up. Anyone can make content nowadays, so we tap into that. But, yeah, I think the key in everything is knowing your audience, knowing what we are and what we do best, which is the walking amongst the monkeys and the conservation behind it. And also being organic. I think I’m being authentic. I think some brands tend to forget that their audiences are human and they don’t want to be sold to. They want to see organic content, digest it, consume it, otherwise they’re going to swipe up or they’re going to swipe across. 

So for us, it’s all about having that tongue in cheek element, hitting all noises, having those serious conservation messaging, whether it’s a blog or whatever, but marrying that up with some funny content. I mean, do you remember the Aurora, the Northern Lights? One silly thing I did on social media was I superimposed a monkey, transparent monkey in the sky here, and we said, “Oh, the Aurora looked a bit different and still contract”, and that got a bit of traction. But, yeah, things like that, you know, showing a bit of personality. I mean, Ryanair do it, a lot of brands are starting to do it now. Curries. I find them hilarious when they chuck a chicken into a air fryer, like from a viral meme video. I don’t know if you’ve seen, Oz, but that’s hilarious. Yeah, that’s brilliant. 

Oz Austwick: I mean, there are some companies that are really smashing social media. I’m a huge fan of Gregg’s social media. And there’s one of the big London department stores that does a world famous Christmas display in their windows every year. And there’s a Gregg’s opposite the road, opposite them, on the other side of the road. And they literally, they reversed their sign so that every time somebody took a picture of the Christmas display, it said Gregg’s. 

Josh Torlop: Oh, brilliant. 

Oz Austwick: What a fantastic thing. 

Josh Torlop: You’re making me hungry for a cheese and onion pasta. I love it. Gregg’s. There is a drive through one in Stoke by Trent Bale. 

Oz Austwick: I might check that out. 

Josh Torlop: For me, I think TikTok in particular, I think every marketer’s worked out that each post you do on TikTok you’re following is the lowest percentage of who will see that. So it’s always a new audience for every post that you do on TikTok. So for us coming in three years ago, we didn’t have a TikTok, which I found incredible. We should have TikTok was my answer in my job interview, and that’s probably what landed me the job because, you know, three years on we’ve got 12.7 thousand followers, which is quite a good growth. 

I’m always my biggest critic, so I’d want more, but I think every marketer or PR would say that. But in terms of the TikTok content that we put out is just making sure that we’re doing it on a consistent basis, because we know that organic nature of the organic post, reaching a new audience each time, that’s probably not going to be there forever.

So it’s sort of using that now to our advantage because, say, if we do ten posts a week and yeah, all those ten posts didn’t get a million views, but if each one of those got a thousand views, that’s 10,000 people that wouldn’t have seen our content. And also that our unique element will be embedded in that content, or it’ll be me in a monkey costume dancing to It’s Raining Men. That wasn’t me, by the way. I’ve just, I’m just like, that slipper wasn’t me. Lots of fun. 

Oz Austwick: I’ll see if I can get a link for that and pop it in the show notes. I mean, I think it’s really interesting that social media kind of gives us this really odd view when it comes to numbers. And you say you’ve got what, say, twelve and a half thousand followers. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, I think it’s 12.7 now. 12.7 thousand. 

Oz Austwick: And those people who are really into social media will look at that and think, oh, that’s not very many. 

Josh Torlop: No. 

Oz Austwick: But put them all in a room. 

Josh Torlop: Well, that’s quite an awful lot for a small organisation. But also zero pounds spent. 

Oz Austwick: Absolutely. If you got twelve and a half thousand people through the gates, that wouldn’t come through the gates otherwise, then that’s a massive step. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah. Well, absolutely. I think for us, we have a quite high awareness campaign yearly campaign. We just want to drive awareness to us. Because I live and die by you put this in front of eyes. Feet are going to certainly follow because of how incredible it is. So that’s what molds our strategy. But that’s obviously one small element is social media.

I mean, we did a PR stunt in 2022 that went globally viral. It reached 900 million people. So we’re talking about 12.7 thousand not being the biggest, but that’s huge. Yeah. James Corden was talking about little old Trent and monkey forest a few years ago. Because you’ll love this, we hired a Marvin Gaye impersonator to serenade our monkeys, saying, “Let’s get it on.” 

Oz Austwick: I saw. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah. 

Oz Austwick: And that was a Valentine’s Day thing. 

Josh Torlop: It was a Valentine’s Day PR stunt, yeah. And it went absolutely viral. I dine out on it every week now at dinner, because I don’t think I’m ever going to live that down. 

Oz Austwick: So, I mean, did it work? Do you have baby monkeys now? 

Josh Torlop: We had twelve that year, I believe. I think twelve. So. 

Oz Austwick: So, from a conservation point of view, getting Marvin Gaye involved was a good move. 

Josh Torlop: Well, that’s it, yeah. We aim between six and seven babies, so if we have twelve that year, then it’s work. 

Oz Austwick: I’m impressed. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah. 

Oz Austwick: So what are some of the challenges? Because obviously it’s just you that does all of this and I’ve worked in house as a marketer and you’ve got to do everything, which inevitably means that you’ve just got to decide which bits you’re going to do and which bits you’re not. How’s that work in the visitor attraction industry? 

Josh Torlop: For me, I hate the saying jack of all trades. I prefer swiss army knife because each part of a swift army knife is very useful and that’s each part of the communication strategy f For me, every bit of it is vital for the success of your marketing and pr strategy. And one of the challenges is, obviously, managing time. Not to be boring, but it is.

For example, this morning I’ve had a BBC radio stoke interview come straight speak to you. But, yeah, it’s a case of making sure that you don’t bite off more than you can chew, not having a skatcon approach, having quite a strategic straight line, knowing what you wanted to achieve. or me. Every bit of it is vital for the success of your marketing and pr strategy. So, yeah, that feeds into our strategy, really. 

It’s not biting off more than we can chew, but also being as impactful as we can with the resource given. So I take all the photography that many people probably don’t know, and Monkey Forest, we don’t outsource photography, I take it. So I feel like, yes, it can be taxing having just one person to do all these roles, but then ensures consistency, because if it’s wrong, it’s the wrong consistency.

But I like to think I’m doing quite well here. So in terms of what we’re doing and what we’re putting out, it’s all consistent, we’re brand cohesive because we haven’t got a lot of chefs in the room giving off opinions, which can be good, can be useful, but still, I think that’s why we get stuff done quite quickly. Say, if I want bit of content, I take my camera in and get the content, whatever it needs to be. But I do say, “Oh, yeah, it’s a marketing team of one”, but I have a great support network around me.

For example, the director, Mark, best boss you’ll ever work for. He is such a good guy and he trusts me to execute the pr and marketing strategy well. And then we’ve got Lisa, the part manager, who helps me a lot as well with radio interviews. They’re all superb in front of the camera. Not a lot of people would say that, but media training wise, everyone is fantastic here in front of media, which is great. So everyone was willing to muck in. 

Josh Torlop: The Marvin Gaye PR event, for example, that was a roaring success because the guides were on board, they knew what, even though it sounded ridiculous. And all of our guides have science based, of course, being Barbary macaque experts. And they thought, what the earth is Josh playing at here? They saw the impact of raising the profile of the endangered species and they were really with me on that.

But that was because we did a team brief. We explained the strategy behind it, what we wanted to achieve. The reason I actually said, the reason why I like to do this high awareness campaign is because I go into the pub with my mates to celebrate getting this job and I’m from a little town called Norfolk in Cheshire, which is probably on the sort of cross county border of Staffordshire. 

And I said, “Oh, I’ve got a job at transome monkey forest.” And they went, “Oh, part of my transom gardens.” ” No”, that’s not the case. So we didn’t have that profile in place. That was only the people that knew about us, by the way. So half the table didn’t even know what Transponkey forest was, which I found baffling 20 minutes up the road. 

Oz Austwick: Absolutely. So, yeah, so, I mean, you get quite a lot of user generated content, your social media, obviously full of monkeys, but most people’s isn’t. So when they come, it’s quite special being to put that out. But you mentioned earlier when were chatting about the fact that your most recent success has been TripAdvisor. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, it’s quite the timing, to be fair. So we’ve gone viral again this week because someone did a review on Tripadvisor and this sums up our marketing strategy to a team because obviously we try and be as lighthearted as possible and resonate with our audiences. So someone did a review about Monkey Forest and they were upset that we had monkeys.

So, yeah, primarily it was monkeys. So we responded. I respond to every review because I find the feedback so useful, because we have the luxury that a lot of businesses who are listening or people are from organisations going to be jealous of this. We’re closed over winter, so November to February. We have a strategic analysis of the business for me as well, marketing activity. I do all my strategy over winter, implement it spring and summer. 

So anyway, we love our feedback, we love receiving the feedback. And this week, it’s the first time in nearly four years where I’ve been stumped for words. I didn’t know what to say to this person because we have got monkeys. So our response went viral. We said something along the lines of, “Yes, we’re a monkey forest. So primarily there are monkeys. Sorry, don’t know how to answer this.” 

Oz Austwick: It just leaves me wondering how they found you. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah, because if you. 

Oz Austwick: Our SEO must be formed pictures of monkey and the website site is covered in pictures of monkeys and it’s called monkey forest. 

Josh Torlop: Can’t please everyone. Right. I’m not sure, to be fair, I’d love for him to reach out because, yeah, it has gone viral. I feel bad for the chap who’s done the review because he must be a bit upset with all the attention he’s got from a review because he’s a paying visitor at the end of the day and he probably had a great time, but. 

Oz Austwick: You’d hope so, but not if you don’t like monkeys, I guess. 

Josh Torlop: Yeah. So. But, yeah, it was in the mail, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, all the national news pretty much this week. So it kept me on my toes and busy. And that’s when it’s hard as a team of one, is to manage things that go viral. 

Oz Austwick: I guess at that point you’re getting a lot of people trying to contact you and get comments from you for their articles. So what they’re putting out is a little bit different. 

Josh Torlop: Well, no, to be fair, everything’s been consistent so far, but it is a lot of marketing, and PR is controlling narratives and making sure that the content or whatever’s being put out is in line with what you’re trying to achieve. And obviously PR has that challenge and I like to think that PR is sort of my bag. So I love to do PR. It’s something that I’ve always been interested in.

I did a journalism degree at university, so I love the PR element of the job and storytelling. So from that, I’m sure fellow PRs that are listening will understand. When something goes viral, it’s a little dreaded demon in the back of your mind where you’re like, “Oh, God, it’s gone viral.” 

Oz Austwick: It’s probably good. 

Josh Torlop: Probably good. But I’ve got a lot of answers to come up with. But, yeah, it’s great for the business and we’re a lovely bunch here. So if anyone does something great, people do tell you, and it’s really nice, and it’s such a wonderful place to work. Even the head guides, they have a bit of bands with me. I like to call them Anton Deck, the two head guides. So it’s Aliya, the Venice, and it’s daydream. 20 years. Well, 19 years, but yeah. So Aliyah gave me a lot of banter. Scene. What has he done now? He’s made it busy for bank holiday. We’re gonna be knackered. But, yeah, it’s all good fun. It’s all good banter. 

Oz Austwick: So what’s next? Where do we go at Trentham Monkey Forest? What’s the future look like? 

Josh Torlop: I want to do another Valentine’s Day PR stunts. I want to do Netflix and chill, so I want to set up play screen for the monkeys. May play a bit of Titanic or love, actually. But, yeah, I just want to carry on going, getting as much awareness of the park as possible, hitting the right noises, bringing a load of visitors in who have a great time and do more things like this, because this is brilliant and I’ve really appreciated you coming in, having a chat. 

Oz Austwick: It’s a joy. It feels a little bit like it’s not work. I’m feeling very lucky today, so thank you very much for having me. 

Josh Torlop: Thank you. I think I’ve bored the monkeys because they’ve all gone. They’ve all legged it. 

Oz Austwick: I am wondering where they’ve gone. Before we wrap it up, we try and finish every episode with a book recommendation. 

Josh Torlop: Brilliant. I think I need to be on brand here, even though there are monkeys here and they’re not apes, but I’m gonna recommend the Chimp Paradox. Can’t remember who it’s by, but it’s a great book. It’s all about controlling your inner chimp as a human and controlling your emotions and making sure you don’t react emotionally too much to things.

Because I like to think I wear my heart on my sleeve and it’s good to make sure that you’re keeping control of your emotions and making sure that you know, if anything happens, you’re doing a great job, everything’s going well in life. Chill out. And not being too hard on yourself. 

Oz Austwick: Amazing. Well, if you’d like a copy, head over to X and retweet us and say that you would like Josh’s book. 

Josh Torlop: I didn’t write it. Josh’s book. Josh’s book. 

Oz Austwick: We call it Josh’s book. Yeah. Thanks so much. I really appreciate having you on board.  And for letting me come and hang out with your monkeys. 

Josh Torlop: There you go. Thanks very much. Appreciate you coming down. 

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Author:

Kelly Molson Managing Director

Host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast, for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she regularly delivers workshops and presentations on the sector at various national conferences and universities including The Visitor Attractions Conference, ASVA and Anglia Ruskin University.

Read more about me